


Musings

by mapplestrudel



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, StarCraft (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 06:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17719676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mapplestrudel/pseuds/mapplestrudel
Summary: Ruth finishes cooking for the crew and finds herself in a pensive mood





	Musings

**Author's Note:**

> This has been written for the Weekly Writing Challenge 2/9/19 for the theme "Love in various forms".  
> It's set in a Mass Effect AU that has incorporated some characters and ideas from StarCraft.

Returning from her mental Cooking Zone, Ruth turned around from the small but functionable kitchen she had insisted on being installed aboard the Hyperion as soon as she had joined the Raiders. Since childhood she had always loved cooking and the peace it brought to her mind. She could zone out completely and revel in feeling, cutting, and smelling the ingredients - all for themselves and then together as the complete meal slowly took shape.

Wiping her hands on a cloth, she took a deep breath and returned her focus to the mess hall that was filled with some of the crew. Sunken into cleaning his handpistol, Ezra was there, her brother, whom she loved with all of a little sister’s might. He had always been her confidante, adviser and partner in crime. He had calmed her down when she was still afraid of monsters under the bed and he had helped her through the first heartbreak of her teenage years. She smiled when he threw a smile himself at Nova who sat down beside him with a bottle of weapon’s oil.

A bit in the back, Chuck the Pug was sunken into a game of tug-of-war with Tassadar. The little three-legged dog was a bundle of joy who loved everybody on board unconditionally. Of course not everybody loved him back, seeing him as a slobbering ugly little thing that shouldn’t even be allowed on a space ship. But he had his charm, and seeing the earnest, proud Tass open up to Mr. Squishyface, made Ruth’s smile a mile wider.

Suddenly Jim was beside her, and held a pot of steaming fresh chamomile tea under her nose. Just being close to him aroused her wildly and a hundred dirty little thoughts raced through her mind. Speaking from his smirk he knew __exactl__ _ _y__ what was going on. Speaking from the bulge in his pants he had the exact same thoughts, too. She smirked back at him and took the mug with her left and only hand, and a thankful nod, and let the soothing smell of the tea quench her heat a bit. From the moment they met, their attraction to each other had been apparent to even the most oblivious people around. Yes, she loved his body, loved the strength of his big, tattooed arms, loved that he could flip her around as if she were a little paper doll. But lately she had noticed something else under all these, say, “carnal desires” - something small and quiet, like a little tug from one soul to another. Because there also was his strategic genius, his dry humour, his unrelenting will to do good even in the most rotten place, and maybe… maybe she loved all of that, too. Maybe she hadn’t acknowledged it yet because it would render her... vulnerable.

An unexpected gentle kiss on her hair brought her back, and with a sigh Ruth let herself lean on Jim’s front.

Maybe being vulnerable wasn’t  _ _that__  bad after all?

**Author's Note:**

> This ME/SC crossover came to be while thinking about my character for a Mass Effect RPG and binging on StarCraft (1+2) videos on YouTube. I asked the GM "Can we have the Raiders in the game?" and he said "Why the hell not?" and then proceeded to sorta translate several SC characters into the ME!universe to become members of Raynor's Raiders, regardless of their original faction. So that's why there's an asari!Nova and a turian!Tassadar for example. And the Hyperion is actually a turian frigate in this.


End file.
